Colorado MahlerFest is proud to announce the launch of the new Mahler Conducting Fellowship Program for outstanding young professional conductors. Beginning in 2016, MahlerFest will invite 2-3 fellows to participate in the festival as assistant conductors. Fellows will attend daily score study and seminar sessions with Artistic Director Kenneth Woods, work with guest lecturers and […]

Gilbert Kaplan, who passed away this past New Year’s Day at the age of 74, was a successful business man with a passion, the music of Gustav Mahler. His success in business allowed him to immerse himself in Mahler’s music, specifically Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, for three decades. Kaplan founded the magazine Institutional Investor in 1967 when […]

For some six decades, as musician, composer and conductor, Pierre Boulez was a major part of the classical music scene. He conducted most of the major orchestras of the world and was music director of three of America’s top institutions; New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, and Chicago Symphony. At one point in the early ’70s, he […]

After twenty-­eight years as Artistic Director of the music festival he founded, Maestro Robert Olson will relinquish the baton at the end of the upcoming MahlerFest XXVIII, in May, 2015, with a farewell performance of Mahler’s last completed work, his Symphony No. 9 in D. Since 1988, MahlerFest has been dedicated to the life, music, […]

I’m pretty good at playing “Drop the needle”, you know, the “game” where you play a few seconds of a piece of music to see if friends can correctly guess the title and composer. Well, this guy is amazingly good. See how well *you* do!

Robert Olson prepares the Colorado MahlerFest Orchestra for the festival week Main Events, two performances of Mahler’s 6th Symphony and Mahler’s 5 Ruckert Lieder. May 17 and 18, 2014. For more information visit mahlerfest.org. Follow us on Twitter @co_mahlerfest

Who is the “hero” in Mahler’s Symphony No. 6? Mahler composed his sixth symphony over the summers of 1903 and 1904. This was a very fulfilling time. His career was increasingly successful. He had married in 1902 and now had a daughter, with another on the way (the second being born just before completion of […]